Inquisition Targets May Be Added to Reconciliation List

Ever since it took a central place in the Holy Father's 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium Draws Near), reconciliation has been important in the plans for the Jubilee Year 2000. The Church hopes to acknowledge and seek forgiveness for sins Catholics have committed throughout Church history.

Two groups may be added to the list of those who need apologies: people mistaken for heretics and witches who may have been the target of the Spanish Inquisition, according to a report that appeared June 30 in London's The Guardian.

Much will depend on the results of an October conference of historians who will search through the files of the Inquisition to determine what really went on—and expose which of the stories about the process are true and which have been invented or embellished in the years since.

Father Georges Cottier, the Pope's personal theologian and chairman of the historical-theological commission preparing for the Jubilee, said that delegates at the conference have been chosen for their historical expertise and professionalism, not their faith.

However, he told the paper, “It's not the task of the conference to rehabilitate victims of the Inquisition. If there are to be any rehabilitations, that is the responsibility of the relevant authorities of the Holy See and, in the final analysis, of the Pope.”

Papal Envoy Speaks Out in Cuba

Pio Cardinal Laghi, speaking at Mass in Cuba on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, had bold things to say about the need to provide religious education in the communist dictatorship, according to a June 29 Reuters story.

“Religious formation, in schools and in other areas of civil society, in no way contradicts the lay nature of the modern state,” he told the 600-member congregation.

Cardinal Laghi heads the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education and is the highest ranking churchman to visit Cuba since Pope John Paul II's visit in January.

Cardinal Laghi also referred to a papal speech that “reminded Cuba's Christian families that they have the duty to demand of the state the right to choose for their children the teaching style, the ethical and civic contents, and the religious inspiration in which they want to form them.”

In both instances, the congregation, which included some representatives of Castro's regime, responded to the statements with sustained applause.

Cardinal Laghi is not counting on the country lifting its ban on religious education any time soon, however. Earlier in the week, he told 200 teachers and school administrators, “We should not be paralyzed by the restrictions of the current moment…. While you still do not have access to schools and universities, choose other paths.”